Out of the box
by Yaodai
Summary: Jack in the box; Getting out is just the start ...
1. The Box

**A/N:** This is a fanfiction. Xiaolin Showdown clearly do not belong to me.  
I`m not English speaker and – to tell the truth – I struggle with the language. PM me, if I screwed something up, I would be glad to correct my mistakes.

**Chapter 1**  
**The Box**

Waking up in place that isn't your bed is rather a bad sign. Waking up in a box was definitely one. And with Jack. Jack in the box. Her box. Like lying right next to her. Kimiko got up quickly, ready to fight, but Spicer didn't move. He was just lying there like forgotten ragdoll, splash of white, red and black against the neutral color of the floor tiles. She slowly walked towards him. It looked like he was breathing, just unconscious. There was rather colorful bruise on almost half of his face on the left side.

"Auch" Kimiko grimaced. Well, not like she didn't have any of that. She wouldn't just let somebody close her in this box otherwise. Through she couldn't remember, how in the hell she ended up in this situation. She probably got her own bump on the head, which is why she didn't know what was going on. And where her shoes went, because they definitely were not on her feet.

"No weapons, no shoes, perfect" she sighed.

One thing fair in this word, Jack was shoeless too. Even his coat was gone, leaving the boy in black trousers and stupid T-shirt with cartoony face on it. Kimiko decided to look around, hoping that she would be able to spot a way out.

The box was more like some sort of cell, without visible doors or windows, and single lamp in the ceiling. Literally. It was some sort of diode, or something like that, long, shiny and flat like board. Well, at least she wasn't in total darkness with Jack who was starting to wake up.

"Ouch, this is a big ouchie!" he whined, then sat down and continued to touching his face and making painful noises, pretty much ignoring rest of the world.

"Ouchie?" Kimiko raised eyebrows. "What are you, five?"

"Bug off, it hurts!"He screamed at her. Tone of his voice was rather similar to the one used by little kids when something goes wrong in the playground. Nice timing to act like a child. She was about to smack other side of his face just to make him shut up, when he blinked and looked around, completely forgetting about bruising in mere seconds.

"Where are we? And where did my shoes go?"

"How the hell I'm supposed to know?" Kimiko crossed her arms on chest. "We're closed, somewhere."

"Congratulations, Captain Obvious" Jack rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't guess that one on my own."

She breathed deeply, trying to find a reason or two why she shouldn't hit Jack right now, just to feel better. But then, he might reverse to his childish behavior and she wound's be able to stand that for sure. At least now he might be useful. A little. She hoped.

"Do you remember anything?" Kimiko asked. "Anything that could help us tell how we end up here?"

"Even if I did, it wouldn't really matter." Jack shrugged. He seemed more interested in the walls around them than talking, his red eyes dancing all around, like he was sure there's going to be an answer written down somewhere.

"But it is important!"

"Nope, not really" he finally decided to get on his feet in rather clumsy manner. He patted his pockets and then grimaced slightly. "Great, no shoes, no other things either... But hey, you're a girl!"

Kimiko blinked. Wide smile on Jack's face was sort of creeping her out.

"What that was about?" she asked finally, trying to force the blush down. This really wasn't a time to bring sexist stuff up and she really hoped when wouldn't hear anything about upper body strength in the next sentence.

"You tend to wearing wigs! And do funny things with your hair!" Kimiko heard instead.

"...funny?" she said slowly after him. She was always very proud of her outfits. She was planning them through everytime, spending many hours at ordering right things to create something completely fresh, new and stylish. And he just called her hair funny. He, wanna-be a goth Jack Spicer.

"Hairpin!" He was definitely out of his mind. Or train of his through just train wrecked somewhere on its way, leaving her blinking stupidly, not understanding what the hell was going on.

"What?" Kimiko asked. She through that 'crazy' was always mixing nicely with 'evil' and 'genius'. Maybe that was the case?

"Do you have any?"

"Oh, so now you decided to find out new things about yourself? Good timing." Kimiko rolled her eyes.

"What?" this time he blinked. Then understood."Ew, no! Just gimme!"

"There aren't any locks to pick here, Jack" Kimiko sighed, but took out her hairpins anyway. They were pulling her hair out too much and that combined with bump on the head was quite painful. She would feel better without them.

"Yeah, but there is some sort of ventilation in this room."

"And that you know how exactly?"

"Um, two people in small room for at least few hours?" Jack raised his index finger. "Without ventilation going on we would definitely uh... not die because of oxygen deprivation right now, but totally would be able to feel thing or two about ourselves."

"Uh" she grimaced. "Thanks for nasty mental image, Jack."

"Yeah, well, luckily somebody believe in coeducation cells" he grinned, then grimaced, because the movement reminded him about the bruises. "Auch."

"I don't see any ventilation shafts through" Kimiko narrowed her eyes looking around the cell once more. No nothing, just bare wall in really uninteresting shade of sage. It looked like something died there, smeared all over the walls and they couldn't clean it all up.

"Yeah, well, If you do they could just put a big sign saying 'way out right here' in capital letters and set it up next to it "Jack rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we got electricity here too."

"And this is telling us what?"

"That we need pull the lamp out, at least halfway through" He looked up, than back at her. "Uh..."

"What? And why?"

"Because it will help me find a way out. But I won't be able to reach it, so..." Jack continued, still looking at her with wariness in his eyes.

"You want me to do it?"

"Well, I can try stand on your arms if you find it kinky, but don't think it would be such a good idea..." Well, he was right. The mental image of them in that combination was rather hilarious. Even if Jack was on the thin side, she was still tiny Japanese girl. He was much bigger than her. Or at least he was beating her in height competition.

Then they went quickly over theory of lock picking things and here she was, standing on Jacks Spicer arms and lock picking friggin' lamp. It was more than awkward, pretty uncomfortable too and it was hard to tell what she was even doing with all the light shining right into her face. It was truly awful and taking way too long.

Kimiko was feeling too hot, her arms were aching from uncomfortable position and her skin feels like it was burning from too much light and warmth too neat it but finally, something happened and she could jump down, letting jack do whatever he wanted with lamp now dangling from the ceiling on few thick cables. Even more was still up there, colorful, thick and thin. Kimiko didn't really understood all of that, he was no electrician by any sort. So she decided to step away and just let Jack do his thing. It felt really, really good to get away from that lamp.

"Do you can get sunburns from a lamp?" she asked, touching her face. It still felt too hot for her liking.

"Yep" he said, doing something with the cables.

"Personal experience? And are you supposed to chew on the isolation?"

"Totally not" he mumbled with one of the cables between the teeth. "But need to get inside and don't have a knife."

"This doesn't looks safe."

"I'm evil, I don't do safe!" he said happily, finally succeeding with breaking the plastic. He shred it even more and started to manipulate inside, sorting through the tiny metal circuits.

"And you're trying to do what exactly?"

"Cheat a little and find that ventilator shaft."

What the hell he was doing, she haven't slightest idea, even after he tried communicate it to her. The speech just didn't make sense, so full of technical terms. Only thing she knew that he was breaking pretty much every point in the "What not to do with your electrical installation" rulebook.


	2. The Labyrinth

**Chapter 2**  
**The Labyrinth**

"How did you know it would be big enough to crawl through?" Kimiko asked, when they were finally on the other side. Spicer did his techno-magic and after awhile, they were free. Kind of. Not really, but on their way. Anyway, they managed to get out of that empty room, because universe decided for once to be nice to Jack.

"Seemed logical?" he shrugged. "You have small shafts when there's window somewhere. If not, you need something bigger, especially if you need to hide it behind pretty solid padding."

"So you guessed!" Kimiko stared at him. Just what he was thinking? What he did just few moments ago was really dangerous and if he screwed something he could set the whole place on fire or even die himself because of electrocution. And he didn't even know if id had any meaning at all!

"Better that than doing nothing?"

"I think you're right." She decided with heavy sigh. Indeed, there was no other choice than waiting. And Kimiko really, really wasn't a patient person. "What now?"

"Now I need put the grating back on, letting anybody know we're out is bad idea." Jack said. To get out the ventilation shaft Kimiko had to kick that thing out of their way, but it seemed to not be in terrible condition because of that. At least good enough to try to hide their track of a while.

"Aren't here any cameras...?" Kimiko looked around, suddenly feeling worried. It would be a shame to lose precious time on things like that, just to found out later they were observed anyway. She didn't spotted anything that looked like it might be a camera, no tiny red lights either, so she managed to relax a little.

It seemed like they little prison was part of some sort of complex. It looked like quite a big building, whatever it was. Decorum was pretty similar to what they saw already – nasty colors on the walls, silence and emptiness under cold light of flat lamps. For all she know, it could be even stage of some sort of horror movie, that kind with alien or monsters in scientific facility, murdering people who were running around completely pointless. And she didn't think getting eaten alive would be such a good idea.

"Hey!" Jack protested to her last comment.." Try to remember about that 'genius' part in 'evil genius'?"

"Did you just said you're used to break in and out of building with high security?" Kimiko smirked at Jack. The boy blushed slightly, but this time he did not protested. Huh. "And where do you plan go now?"

"Now we're looking for my shoes."

"Your priorities amaze me, Jack" she said dryly, putting her hands on hips. "Seriously, shoes?"

"Where my shoes are, there should be rest of our stuff," Jack muttered.

"Fair point" Kimiko agreed after moment of consideration. She might not had any kind of Shen Gong Wu among her things, but she would still feel safer with all of her stuff on hand. And if she actually had an ancient artifact somewhere among all things in her purse… "But we need to hurry."

"No running shoeless in the strange places!" Jack protested quickly in high pitched voice, panicking a little. "Its loud, we don't need loud!"

"Afraid, aren't we?" Kimiko smirked. She really, really should not toy with him like that, especially not now, but it was hard to stop herself. Spicer was astonishing as a target and his hilarious reactions were definitely making her day a little better. She was an awful person, truly a bully, but he was pretty much shooting his own foot, trying to explain his point.

"Look, if somebody managed to kidnap you once, he would be able to recapture you anytime..."

Now Kimiko just looked at him sourly and pursed her lips. He blinked and laughed nervously, probably remembering that once he managed to do exactly what he was talking about. And just told her that he could do it again.

"Okay, bad example, but you get my point, right? No stuff, no information, no idea where a way out is."

"I guess I do." She tilted her head to the side. "So... any idea about what direction is the right one? You're the one with right experience here."

"Haven't slightest idea." He admitted with rather stupid smile stuck on his face.

"Great." Kimiko rolled her eyes. But she was walking beside Jack anyway. He at least got some sort of a plan. And idea what the hell was going on with him being evil and all. Takes one to know one and all that stuff.

The corridors were rather gloomy, without any windows at all, painted in dark green colors, long, narrow and many enough to make quite a labyrinth. Besides sound of their steps on cold floor, and quite loud hum of electricity it was really silent.

"What the hell is with this place?!" Kimiko felt more than just irritated when they were in the yet another crossroads. "There aren't even any kind of doors!"

"There were a few, just closed." Jack corrected her. "And I doubt there was something interesting in there anyway. And we turn right on this one."

"How do you know?"

"Just a hunch?"

Kimiko narrowed eyebrows. Jack definitely knew something and didn't want to share it. Besides, he wasn't babbling. Silent Jack wasn't a good sign, that she knew for sure. His silence was actually creeping her out much more than this place and not knowing anything at all. It was just so… unnatural. Wrong.

Finally they found a door they were able to open. With a hairpin, but still. Not much was inside. Just desk with computer on it and a chair by it and several heavy looking cabinets with a lot of drawers. Everything looked like made out of metal and then painted.

Jack was already by the computer, tapping at the keyboard with admirable speed.

Kimiko cooked over his shoulder, to check, what he was doing, but long strings of bare code made a little sense to her. She was able to hack pretty decently, but she needed her stuff and programs to do so. It was doing most of coding by itself and this old piece of garbage was forcing user to do all of the work. She felt a little bit stupid, because Jack seems to perfectly knew what he was doing. Kimiko was supposed to be better than people like Spicer. On the other hand, the temple wasn't into training their hacking skills. Hacking was somewhat immoral.

"Ha!" Jack grinned happily after a short moment, and she could see a map of the complex on the screen. "Gotcha!"

"Great, now we know where we are," she agreed. The map was rather complicated. It was showing at least two levels at once, like in those really old games, where the longer you were staring on the map of the area, the more lost you were feeling. If she was reading this thing right, there was several other sheets, which was rather scary perspective. The complex was really huge. Being imprisoned in huge place was rather bad news. "Kind of? Anyway, did you find why we are here at all?"

"Not yet." Jack shook his head then put a finger on part of the map. "But here is our stuff. At least should be."

"I could check it out" Kimiko proposed.

"Yeah, because splitting up is the best idea ever!" Jack protested in more Spicer-like manner, waving hands in irritation and making faces. His voice even got into his usual high-pitched tones. Most of the time that was unbearable annoying, but right now Kimiko found comfort in it. Jack was something she knew, something familiar in this odd and unwelcoming place. "Don't you watch any horror movies?"

"I can't just sit here waiting for you to finish whatever you're doing. Anytime now somebody might check our cell..." And she really wanted to do something. It was just wrong to fell useless, while people like Jack Spicer were actually doing something. It just wasn't right, not in her book. She was supposed to be hero around here.

"I know, I know! Just let me find where the exit is!"

"Around here, maybe?" Kimiko pointed at another spot in the map. "At least it is way... up?"

"Yeah, we're kind of underground." Jack agreed with a sigh. "But we can't just go there, I'm sure somebody is going to guard it."

"So? How else we get there?"

"Um... ventilator shaft?" Evil Boy Genius scratched his head.

"We can't climb up in the ventilator shaft." This time it was Kimiko, who protested.

"Why not?" Jack blinked. "Seriously, doable, did it before."

"Several floors up too?" she asked with doubt in her voice.

"Okay, maybe not." he mumbled. "But look, we might get to the elevator shaft, there should be a ladder or something."

"Now it sounds better," she nodded. "Only we need to watch out for incoming elevator."

"Meh, easy enough to block on the spot." Jack decided after moment of toying with the whole idea. "The most tricky part is going to be getting out of the building. No chance we won't be seen."

"Maybe we should go back to the ventilation shaft..."

"And then what, go through the garage?" he shook his head in disapproval. Then blinked. "Actually this is a good idea."

"So let's go." Kimiko grinned. She felt already better, knowing at least a little bit more than moment before. If someone like Jack was saying that it was possible, then they would be definitely able to get out of here. "Cannot wait to get my shoes back on."

"Yeah" he smiled back. "It kind of cold in here."

In the next few minutes Jack made sure no one would be able to tell that they used the computer at all. Then they walked. Even crawled some distance, when they actually heard somebody else on this level. Through they didn't actually saw anybody at all, the whole time it took them to get to the room, where their stuff was supposed to be. And it was there, without anybody else around. There wasn't even any kind of alarm on the doors. Just a lock, and that was more than just easy.

"I love your hairpins!" Jack said with rather sassy smile on his face.

"You can keep them, don't want to get between the bunch of you…" Kimiko commented dryly.

"Oh, haha." He grumbled under his nose, but kept the hairpins anyway.

Putting shoes back on was really, really great experience. Kimiko never through she would be so happy about something like that. Besides only now she could actually tell how cold she was before. She was still shaking a little. It took Jack a little more time to get his stuff.

"Good Heavens, how many thrash you're carrying around?" she stared, as he still was collecting various items and stuffing them into many pockets of his cloak and trousers.

"Hey!" he protested. "It's no thrash! Everything's important!"

"How in the hell you're even able to fly around dragging all that stuff along?"

"I'm light build?"

"Yeah, right. Are you done? We really need to go now." Kimiko eyed the doors. Not that she was scared – at least not much – but she really didn't wanted anybody to just walk on them, while Jack was still sorting his trash. And why he was carrying several screwdrivers with him was beyond her.

"I'm all right." He put the goggles on top of his head. "Let's crawl back!"

"That didn't sound inspiring, but whatever."


	3. The Run

**Chapter 3**  
**The run**

Crawling up the vent wasn't impossible just as Jack said. The shaft was narrow enough to use back to help stabilize your position. A little hard and rather slow, but they were making progress.

"Why in the world do you even need that Monkey Staff?" asked Kimiko, feeling slightly irritated at Jack pace. He was moving way too fast and she was the Dragon Apprentice here. She was supposed to be the faster one! She was training her ass off for hours and hours, and she couldn't even tell difference!

"I like it." She could tell that Jack grinned, even if she couldn't see his face right now. It was just too obvious.

"You like being a monkey." she deadpanned.

"What's wrong with being a monkey?"

"They stinks. And got fleas."

"Maybe a little. Now hush, the sound is going all around the base."

Kimiko blushed. Who the hell he was to tell her what to do?! Besides, he was talking as much as she did, so why suddenly he was one to hush her, like some sort of naughty child?  
He was right, of course. They should be silent to get out of here without creating a whole new sort of messy situation.

Crawling, and then climbing up the metal ladder, and crawling some more was boring, nerve wrecking and seemed to have no end at all. Kimiko felt like they were doing it for hours. Her back was hurting from unnatural position she was forced into, her knees were white-hot balls of pain from moving on all four almost all the time, migraine was starting to forming somewhere near her forehead from all the stress she had to deal with. It was truly awful situation, but it could be much worse. They were lucky, they managed to sneak through several levels already, and they were nearby the way out. She almost could feel fresh air already.

Naturally, they luck just had to run out in the worst possible moment.

They were almost out of here, they had almost passed the guards and were about to enter the garage - or the place where the military keep all their mobile stuff, Kimiko didn't really cared for names in such places - when somebody spotted them.

Then, there was nothing else to do but run as fast, as possible. They ducked behind one of the vehicles right on time to see, as the ground where they stood a mere moment ago was hit by the series of bullets. It left deep traces in the concrete.

"Did they just shoot at us...?" Kimiko felt as the blood flew out of her face. She felt weak, and scared, and shocked beyond imagination. "They just did shot at us!"

"Yes, they did!" Jack croaked. "Now move it! We need to run!"

She just nodded and rushed after him. If Jack was good at something it definitely was running. There was more shooting behind them, short series of loud bangs tearing through the space, bringing out the dust up.

"Crap" Jack grumbled when they hid behind yet another vehicle. "This is leading to nothing!"

"Do you have any other idea?"

He quickly looked around, including the ceiling.

"In fact I do!" he grinned nastily. "Make some fire up there!"

"I can't just attack them!" she protested.

"Not them!" Jack shouted. "Just enough to trigger the fire alarm and make some foam to hide us!"

She nodded, now understanding.

"Wudai Mars! Fire!"

The flames came to life before her, eating through the air, hungrily reaching for everything around. Their roar was powerful to tame the screams and sounds of shooting guns echoing in the huge hall.

The fire accidentally touched fire extinguisher and wrapped itself around it, heating the metal enough for whole thing to explode with loud bang, sending scraps of metal in every direction, sharp and fast, and hot, cutting through everything in their way.

"In there! Quick!" Jack shouted, gesturing at one of the tanks.

"Are we stealing a tank...?" She asked, already climbing the vehicle, and then jumping inside.

"They're the only thing here that not come with keys! We don't have time to play with wires!" Even now, after closing the hatch shut behind them, they could hear people outside. It was odd and muffled, and speaking volumes at the same time. There was just no other choice now. At least the tank seemed to be just fine in the whole conflagration. At least for now, because the flames barely licked it surface. But if they don't move soon…

"Do you even know how to drive this thing?" She asked, moving towards him. There was a lot of switches where he was seated, a lot of different stuff too, but no window.

"Shouldn't be that hard!" He said, switching several things on. The small monitor on his right came to life and was now shining bright green, giving everything inside the tank rather sickly coloring. Jack scowled at it.

"Thermal sight in the fire, should know it would be useless…"

"You don't know how to drive it!" Kimiko shrieked, feeling that the doom was near.

"I learn quick!" He barked back. Then the whole vehicle shook violently and they both could hear loud crash.

"I think I just trashed something…" said Jack with rather nervous smile on his lips.

"You're such an idiot!" Kimiko hissed at him. "I promise, I'm going to kick your ass in so many ways if we somehow managed to get out of this mess alive!"

"Hey, I'm driving blind here!"

"Just try to not kill us!"

"Hey, I kind of remember, where the doors were!"

"Kind of?!"

"If you like, you can try to tell me from that shiny bright green if you can tell something apart!" Jack snapped.

He somehow managed to drive through the entrance and not the wall, since there was no another crash. Soon, the green monitor managed to be helpful, since temperature around them dropped to normal.

"How can we tell if they're still after us?" Kimiko asked.

"Oh, they definitely are after us, we stole their tank." Jack rolled his eyes. "But there should be a scope somewhere…"

Before she managed to find something that at least looked like a scope, they both fell sudden jolt.

"And what was that…?"

"I think part of the reactive armor just exploded. " He said weakly.

"It did WHAT?"

"It is supposed to!" Jack groaned. "Anyway, they are still shooting at us, and are definitely after us. And they are faster, tanks don't do the fast stuff very well…"

"So…?"

"So sooner than later we're screwed." He looked really bitter, when he said it. Sounded bitter too.

"Maybe not." Kimiko bit her lip as she was thinking fast. "Would you like to recreate scene or two from an action movie?"

"Why do I fell like getting captured again is actually a better idea?" Jack asked weakly.

But he had no better idea, so there was no other choice than do the crazy and hope it end up well.

"I really don't like this…" Jack squeaked as he drove the vehicle straight in the direction of a cliff. It was stupid, it was suicidal and it was their best shot. Flying tank was likely the worst idea ever. He managed to force vehicle to continue its ride to the inevitable doom, and trotted towards Kimiko. She was already by the hath, ready to action.

It was easy to fell, when the ground ended, even if they didn't really saw it happens. There was just that one strange shook and then that feeling of ultimate wrongness down in the stomach when the floor under their feet slightly shifted.

Kimiko grabbed Jack collar and yanked him up, jumping out of the hatch with all her strength. The machine flew under them surreally slowly and then crashed on the ground underneath, exploding in the giant ball of fire. The power of explosion threw them away like puppets, forcing breath out of their lungs. They it ground hard, luckily on the good side of the cliff.

Kimiko managed to stood up almost immediately after that, shaken up and hardly hearing anything, but still thinking straight. She grabbed Jack again and started dragging him in the direction of nearest place that looked like they could hide there, to wait until they will be alone. Luckily, he didn't faint and get the idea pretty quickly, moving on his own.

"I can't believe we're alive." Kimiko was looking down, down the valley, at what was rest of their tank. It was still burning and several hours (or it at least felt like that) had already passed. Most of this time they spend curled up somewhere behind the stones, in some sort of small cave. At least they could hear each other now, through Kimiko still had that uncomfortable ringing in her right ear.

"Let's go or it won't be a very long life." said Jack, but didn't really move, his eyes fixated on the devastated machine. "Seriously, we can't just stand here and watch the fireworks."

Kimiko nodded. After stealing somebody's tank and then destroying it you definitely should be not around to talk with the owner. Especially after the owner was shooting at them with pretty dangerous arsenal.

"What the hell did you do to end up in that mess?" She asked finally. Because normal people don't just kidnap teenagers for fun. There was something more to it.

"Me? Why do you think it was me?! You were there too!"

"Fair point." Kimiko nodded. "But that was the military, wasn't it?"

He was silent for moment long enough to tell her she was right.

"Right now they think we're dead." He said finally. "You should go back to the temple. Before they confirmed there's no bodies..."

"Jack..."

"This time is really not my fault, ok?" He shrugged a little more nervously to her liking. "Through it's totally gonna be when next Shen Gong Wu will get active."

The forced joke was more than just lame, but she smiled back anyway. They were both pretty shaken by the whole experience and the sooner they come back home, the better.

"Totally."

xxx

"Kimiko!" Omi launched at her the moment he saw her. "You're okay!"  
She was slightly weirded out by his action. On the other hands it was rather nice, to have someone to hug you like that.

"Good to see you in fine health, girl," Clay also smiled, his shoulders visibly relaxing.

"Where the hell were you?!" Raimundo was the only one, who get to the most important part straight away. "We through you were dead!"

"Thing or two happened" she shrugged. "Through I still don't remember, how it all started. Got a bump on my head."

"You were having most heroic Showdown with villainous Jack Spicer, when blaam! There was big, big explosion near the arena and everything in many feet around the center was burned to a crisp. We thought..."

He looked like he was near tears, so she hugged him back quickly.

"But I'm all right. So is Jack if anybody interested in that."

"Of course he was." Raimundo rolled his eyes. "It was his..."

"It wasn't" she shook her head, knowing what he was going to say.

"What do you mean, it wasn't? He's the mister explosion here! And the only one around with the stuff that actually explodes!"

"Well, it wasn't him this time." She shrugged. "I really need to check the news, I don't know where we were, or even why."

"And you think it is going to be on news?" Raimundo raised eyebrow, looking at her partially with curiosity and partially like he was suspecting something not quite good on her part. It maddened her a little, that he didn't believe her, when he was the one who always gave the most stupid excuses she ever heard in her entire life.

"I'm going to look for something about terrorists stealing a tank." Kimiko said, just for the pure fun of seeing expression on their faces. She felt slightly better afterwards, because it was really hilarious.

"You are a terrorist?!" screamed Omi, his eyes wide with shock. He even jumped back a little, not really sure what he was supposed to do now.

"You stole a tank?!" The other two boys were more interested in the other part of her story.

"Technically Jack did. I think. I was inside, does it count?" Kimiko scratched her chin, not quite ready to drop the fun just yet.

"Why on Earth you two needed a tank for?!" Raimundo screamed, totally about lose it too. Kimiko wasn't sure if it was because she shocked him that much, or he was just horribly jealous that he missed ride in a tank.

She sighed. She couldn't keep it up forever – Pedrosa soon would die because of a stroke, or something like that, and Omi looked more than just lost in the conversation. Considering, how little the tiny monk knew about rest of the world, she wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't even idea what they were talking about. Clay was just looking at her, waiting in silence and that was truly meaningful type of silence too.

"Maybe we should wait with that information for maser Fung? It is kind of complicated story. " Kimiko smiled slightly at the boys.

They agreed, so the whole group wandered inside the main building, looking for their master. Easy thing to do, since master Fung was man of habit and was actually pouring himself a cup of tea. He looked in their direction over delicate, porcelain teapot and smiled gently.

"It is good to see you in good health, Kimiko." He greeted her, then nodded in direction of the boys. "Would you like to join me in my evening tea?"

Tea was always a good idea – because with master Fung the alternative was always some sort of rather boring training – so they sat down around the table, waiting for Clay to collect cups for all of them and serve the tea, since he was the only one standing. When he sat down, there was time to finally start talking.

"So, can you tell us, what happened to you and Jack Spicer, Kimiko?" asked Master Fung.

She nodded and started the story for the moment, she regained consciousness till her arrival at the temple ground.

"Jack Spicer being useful. Most surprising." Omi snickered.

"Whatever say about the guy, he's quite handy around technology." Clay shrugged.

"Yeah, he was." Kimiko nodded. "Through I felt rather strange not knowing what he was doing or what was going on"

"Yet he seemed to know it pretty well?" Master Fung raised cup to his lips.

"Yeah. And I don't like it at all "Kimiko grimaced. "We were on the same side in there, but he didn't tell me simple thing."

"You yourself said there wasn't much time to do so" he pointed out.

"I guess I did. But afterwards? He just… he didn't even give me chance to ask questions!"

"We probably should hunt for the information about the whole deal" Raimundo stretched himself. "It would be quote hard to just hide the whole flying and then crashing tank incident. And even if it don't give us all the information, we should know where to start digging next."

"Are you sure we should do this?" Clay asked. "I reckon' that messing with military is just a bad idea."

"We just check thing out" Raimundo waved hand at him. "If something else happens, we always could go straight to Spicer and shook the information out of him."

"Sounds like a plane!" Omi smiled brightly.

"Plan." Kimiko rolled her eyes.

The problem was, there were no information to research. At all. She even tried hacking into servers of one of news studio. And didn't found anything.

Kimiko bit her lip, staring at unhelpful monitor. Was that Jack's doing? Or someone entirely else decided to take the initiative?

**A/N: Thank You so very much for reviews and PMs! I'm always happy to respond to any sort of feedback!**

**If somebody is curious, they managed to trash M1A2 Abrams. I was thinking about stealing a Bradley first (I find them pretty damn cute), but that tank is just glorious.**


	4. The Truth

**Chapter 4**  
**The Truth**

It has been several weeks since they all saw Jack for the last time and Kimiko started to worry a little. He didn't even showed up for the Wu hunting, and a few revealed itself. Until now, he was showing up almost every single time, even if just to wave his fist at them, or watch from afar, deciding he wasn't in the mood for another battle.

That, Kimiko decided, was rather a bad sign.

Jack was just too stubborn to drop out of the radar like that, even with the whole deal with army. No mention that it ended up fine! Not once they were around the temple, nobody showed up to give them all some sort of proposition, no nothing. Even the story in the papers, about the crashed tank, was very vague and quickly forgotten. Some soldier just get drunk and crashed it, charges were taken, end of story. So why Jack didn't get back to the old way of living? He wouldn't be too afraid, not him. Spicer was the one to never give up hope, he was hopeless optimist like that.

After they gathered the third Wu without self-proclaimed Evil Boy Genius showing up on the scene, she decided to simply check out on him. Get some sort of an answer, because after all that time he was something that become part of their world. Jack couldn't just decide one day that it was time to turn back like that, without a single world about it, no goodbye, no nothing.

She took Silver Manta Ray, since she didn't fell like asking Dojo for the flight. Besides, if next Wu choose this particular time to show up, the dragon would be needed by others. Other monk she didn't wanted on her little trip too, since she wanted to talk to Jack, not spook him.

The mansion looked like it always did. Huge and elegant, a tiny little bit intimidating with that huge frond doors. Standing in front of them and knocking on the hard wood, she felt somewhat tiny. That was probably the point.

The doors opened on itself, or maybe it was one of the Jack-bot who let her in. As far as she knew, Jack was living here mostly on his own, the rest of the family showing up rather randomly. It was quite helpful, since they battled from time to time on the mansions ground and it would be hard to explain the whole deal, not dropping the secret of Shen Gong Wu in the same time. It was also a tiny little bit sad. Her own father, even if living mostly in his own world of toys and games, had always time for her and tried hard to be around as much as possible. The older Spicers apparently didn't share the sentiment, simply letting the boy be. And anyway, what kind of sensible parent would let his child to build army of killing robots in the basement?

Kimiko shook her head and walked inside. It was sparkling clean, as always, like taken out straight from the pages of some catalogue about how to get your home to look extraordinary, or so. It also looked empty, sterile in some sort of way, like nobody really lived in here. There was no any sort of family photos on the walls, no simple knick-knags on the shelves, no newspaper left forgotten somewhere.

Her steps echoed in huge, elegant hall. It was kind of creepy.

Nobody showed up to talk to her, not even one of the Jack-bots, so Kimiko decided to fell invited to the basement, where Jack should be, doing God only knows what. Sometimes science in his hands looked like some sort of magic rather than that boring stuff you learn at school.

She knew the way to the basement rather well. She was there before, once lead by Jack himself, the other times dropping here with guys, to get the Shen Gong Wu back or simple steal some of Spicer's.

as always, the "Evil Lair" looked like mad-man laboratory or maybe very advanced workshop. Or both, crossed over with teenager room, with all stuff on the floor. Magazines, comics book, scientific thick tomes crossed in many places in red marker with the dry commentary on the margins, tossed in the corner without second through.

Nothing attacked her nor the alarm started to ring, so she decided to go deeper into the room, looking for Jack.

The light was flickering, far away, hidden by the corner, casting strange shadows on the walls. Everywhere she looked, there were memories of the past. Pile of severely destroyed bots here, remaining of those funny Koi-Fish robots there. Even the Cheerleaders were sitting by the wall of the far side. Because of the light it seemed like their creepy glass eyes were wandering after her. In the air, there was loud buzz of electricity and sparkling, and other loud sounds. It all smelled like hot metal and fire, and lubricating oil, dry and sour. Finally, she reached the far side of the basement, where Jack was supposed to be, oblivious to her presence and completely concentrated on his work, whatever it was.

"Jack...?" Kimiko blinked, trying to get used to the sudden splash of light coming from one side of the laboratory. "Jack, where...?"

The sentence was never finished, because she saw him before she managed force the words out of her throat. He was standing next to one of his machines, gigantic ring of metal. It looked like the same one they once used to send Omi into the past, to safe he world. It was shining cold in the sparkling lights of welding machine in Jacks hand, it's surface slightly oily and in the color of brass or some other copper alloy. There was a lot of wires everywhere around the machine, tangled together in complicated web, colorful yet dark.

"Jack, what are you doing?"

"And what it looks like?" he answered her question with his own. She couldn't tell the look on his face - he was wearing the goggles over his eyes and it was making it all really hard, even with such expressive face as his.

"Like running away!" she screamed. "Never through you were a quitter, Spicer!"

He just laughed at her. It was short, and even wasn't sound that real, but it managed to bring Kimiko into the fury anyway.

"Do you think this is the answer?!" she screamed, walking towards the boy. "That you just change all the things you don't like about your past and somehow it will all get better?"

Jack was silent, dark shadows were dancing on his face in creepy lighting show coming from the machine.

"Please, Jack! We can help you!"

"Doing what?" he asked. His voice has bitter sound to it. "Let me hide in the temple? We both know it wouldn't work."

"Jack, I don't know how, but I'm sure, we can do it!"

"No. No you can't" Jack shook his head. "They were after me, anyway. They took you too only by mistake"

"What are you talking about?" Kimiko blinked.

"Think." he said quietly, but somehow she managed to hear him well. "You're safe among the monks. They always were neutral, no matter what was going on with the rest of the world. They're going to keep you safe. But I? I'm but a misfit, already noted on several occasion."

"Jack..."

"Nobody would suspect a thing" he continued. "They would just report me as runaway and I would be never found again" Jack shrugged. "This is really my only chance. I don't want be at anyone's mercy."

"Then what are you planning to do? Changing few things..."

"It is modified version of machine you thinking about, Kimiko." Jack smiled slightly. "No travelling through time in my future."

"Then what...?"

"This is the gate to the another universe. Temporary gate, anyway," he shrugged. "One similar to ours enough for me to fit it. I found world where my other self is dead, so taking his place wouldn't be difficult."

"And you thing you can just switch like that? Somebody would notice something!"

"Oh, here's the thing, Kimiko. Nobody would."

Something in his voice told her, that he wasn't lying, that he was really sure of it. And something like that definitely should not be truth! He had family - through they never were around, friends - through she hadn't meet any. It was painful to think of. But he wasn't lying, he really wasn't. For the first time, when he was standing before her, without any sort of a mask glued to his face, without false smile.

Kimiko didn't like the true face of Jack at all.

It was sad and lonely and just plain miserable and there was nobody to care about him. He could just go away and nobody would even miss him. There even wasn't anything she could tell him. Besides only one thing and it was really hard to form the word, like it didn't want to get out of her throat.

"You should run." He said softly. "I set it to overload, whole place is going to explode in few minutes. Don't worry, Eye of Dashi is going to survive it. I set one of the Jack-Bots to retrieve it after the portal shut down."

"I don't worry about that stupid Wu!" she closed her hands in the fists. "And I'm sorry. I really am. It shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't end like that!"

He didn't say anything. He just waved shortly in her direction and then walked through the portal. Just like that. Just like that he was leaving his whole life behind, like it was worth nothing, like it doesn't matter at all.

The machine shut down, and whole place was now dark and silent, and empty. And about to blow up anytime now.

Kimiko shook her head. She needed to get out. The robot already took the Eye of Dashi out and now was heading towards the exit. She decided to follow. She needed that Shen Gong Wu anyway. Snatching it before anyone else does seemed a good thing to do.

She turned her head for a moment, looking at the Evil Lair for the one last time, but she couldn't see much. There was too much tears in her eyes.

Because something came to an end and she didn't like it. She really didn't.

She wanted Jack back, she wanted life back to being easy and funny, she wanted to stop being so responsible for the world. She wanted to curl in the tiny ball somewhere and cry, while the merciless fire was swallowing building which was once Spinners manor.

The air tasted like ashes but the sky didn't seem to care at all.

The weather was wonderful. Sunny and warm, without single cloud on the cerulean skies, so intense it hurts.

"There should be a storm" she said in hoarse voice. "There really should be one."

She looked at the Eye of Dashi, now safe in her hand. The lonely Jack-Bot, the last think to prove that Jack Spicer really existed was just standing there, waiting to cease like everything else. It was going to rust away over the years, or somebody would just take it away and destroy it, or take apart to recreate it, use it. Maybe even at war. Jack might have been self-proclaimed evil genius, but he definitely would not wanted somebody to use his technology in such way.

"I am so sorry," Kimiko said once again, and raised the Eye of Dashi.

If there was no storm, she is going to make one. It was all she could do.

**A/N: So... it seems we reached the end of this story (for now, because I have that little thing for the sequels). As you can see the box from the title wasn't really a prison cell, but something way bigger. And yeah, both heroes and villains failed to achieve their goal. Universe is rather nasty place with truly cruel sense of humor.**


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